09.17.16
by

Coaches Still Slow On The Uptake

nottd

Big 10 replay officials blew this call as proven by this Glenn Tinner photo.

Sitting around with a smaller-than-usual post-game tailgating group after the Stony Brook game, my longtime friend Mark asked me a question.

“Mike, are you going to the Penn State game?”

“No.”

“No? Why?”

“If they had beaten Army, I would have. My feeling is if this coaching staff can’t scheme for the teams they should beat, I have no confidence in them scheming for a team that might be on their level or a little above so I don’t want to go all the way there and then have to make the trip back all pissed off.”

“C’mon, bro,” Mark said, “How many years have you been following Temple football?”

Too many, I said.

Mark’s point was that I should accept disappointment by now. I had, and still have, a different take.


Making Walker a
dropback passer
is trying to fit
a square peg into
a round hole.
The sooner the
coaches realize that,
the better the chances
for future success.
They have a unique
weapon and they should
use him as such.

I wanted one year, just one, that Temple beat all of the teams it was supposed to beat and maybe reached up and beat one or two teams it was not supposed to beat with a solid if not brilliant coaching game plan.

I have not seen that year since the 13 years Wayne Hardin coached the team, but I had my hopes. After a 34-27 loss to Penn State on Saturday, my belief has not changed about this staff being a little slow on the uptake about basic football principles. Before the first game of the season, we outlined here the standard operating procedure to shut down a triple option—44 stack, nose guard over the center, tackles in the A gap, eight in the box and force them to pass. If a triple option team beats you passing, you walk over and shake their hand afterward. If they beat you running the ball because your linebackers played 4-5 yards off it, you walk over to your defensive coordinator and use that same hand to slap him in the head four or five times.

This is all simple shit that even a good high school coaching staff knows. We even outlined in this post how to play Army BEFORE the game and, of course, the slow-on-the-uptake staff had to do things their way.

As we all know now, the Owls left the A gaps open, and played their linebackers 4-5 yards off the ball and they were predictably gouged by the fullback. Afterward, the kids got blamed and the coaches got a pass in the post-game press conferences conducted by, surprise, the coaches.

Slow on the uptake also could be the phrase to describe use of the Owls’ personnel.  Earlier this week, we wrote a post on our five keys to beat Penn State and the No. 1 key was “Roll That Pocket.” Phillip Walker is a much more dangerous threat to defenses when he rolls in the pocket and becomes a threat to run the ball as well as pass it. Linebackers and safeties have to come up to stop the run and Temple receivers, covered when Walker drops back in the pocket, suddenly are running free through the secondary when he is on the move. Yet new offensive coordinator Glenn Thomas insists on making Walker a Matt Ryan, dropping him in the pocket more often than not. Maybe that’s because Thomas coached Ryan with the Atlanta Falcons. You cannot turn Russell Wilson into Tom Brady, nor can you turn Phil or P.J. Walker into a Matt Ryan. Walker completed 25 of 34 passes for 286 yards, but had very limited success when he was forced to drop back. When he took that step to the outside, receivers got separation like the Red Sea parted.

Making Walker a dropback passer is trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. The sooner the coaches realize that, the better the chances for future success. They have a unique weapon and they should use him as such.

Walker sees the field a lot better and has a lot more success when the Temple coaches move the pocket for him, a fact that they should have known long before yesterday. The learning curve for this staff is too long and winding and leads to too many dead ends. The process needs to speed up if this team is going to have meaningful success the rest of the way.

Until then, my blood pressure will not allow road trips.

Monday: Recalibrated Expectations

09.16.16
by

Only One Thing Needs To Be Done

No respect for the Owls by the scruffy guy and the young guy.

A real rivalry is like a delicious cake in that it needs a few basic ingredients to be meet the minimum taste standards.

Geography, animosity (at least with the fan bases, but it would also help with the coaching staffs) and arrogance from one or the other parties makes for a good college football rivalry.  This used to be a rivalry in the 1930s and 1940s. Even an old headline in a newspaper (see inset) acknowledged that.

defeats

Note “rivals” in headline

Years of Temple futility followed and ended the rivalry and fostered a decades-long lack of respect for the Owls. All of those ingredients are there for Temple and Penn State except one: Respect. The PSU fan base and even their own “experts” are predicting a beating of Temple similar to what PSU did to a very poor Kent State team.

If they think another version of Kent State is coming to town, they will be in for a huge surprise on Saturday (noon, Big 10 Network). Temple is in another stratosphere than Kent State.

Only one thing needs to be done to get that respect and the Owls know what it is: Win at Penn State and win for the second year in a row.

You would think the Owls would have earned at least that with a 27-10 win last year, but instead all they have received is a lot of excuses. “If James Franklin had coached a better game” or “if Saquon Barkley got the ball more” the Nittany Lions would have won. From my seat at Lincoln Financial Field, Franklin had nothing to do with his offensive line getting boatraced by the Owls’ defensive line.  Barkley’s one carry was for minus-1 yard. After that, maybe an objective observer can see why Franklin did not have a whole lot of confidence in giving the ball to Barkley again.

In my lifetime, Temple has only had three real rivalries—Delaware, Rutgers and Villanova—and, while Penn State always met the geographic requirement, the other rivalries always had it over anything Penn State-Temple. There was a real dislike between the coaching staffs at Delaware and Temple when Tubby Raymond coached one team and Wayne Hardin the other. Temple was where Delaware was when Hardin was hired. Hardin took the Owls to the “big time” and Raymond always resented it. That made for a good rivalry.

Rutgers always thought it was better than Temple, but it never proved it on the field over the long haul as the series is basically even. The Rutgers’ fan base is New York arrogant and, after Temple beat Rutgers four-straight times, it was Rutgers who was retained by the Big East and not Temple and that made for a lot of resentment. That was a great rivalry.

Villanova kept Temple out of the Big East and Temple resented it and, when Steve Addazio beat Villanova, 42-7, and 42-10, in back-to-back years, that was extra satisfying for Temple.

Since this is the last meeting between Penn State and Temple and the Penn State fan base seems to have learned little from the beating they received last year, the only thing to cement this as a rivalry in the minds of a lot of people is for Temple to go out by winning two in a row.

That would be extra sweet Karma on a day that the Penn State community broadcasts its tone-deafness by honoring Joe Paterno. Beating Penn State up there would earn the Owls a measure of respect that even 27 unanswered points a year ago has not yielded. Maybe, just maybe, that is the only ingredient  needed now for a real rivalry.

The Owls know what needs to be done and they need to do it.

Saturday: Game Analysis

09.15.16
by

Temple Watch Parties

templewatch

Fans doing “T for Temple U” at NYC watch party (btw, it is a violation to wear orange at TU watch party).

While the Big 10 Network is virtually everywhere, it is nowhere in the small town of Rockledge, located just outside the Fox Chase section of Northeast Philadelphia.

A pit stop at the annual Rockledge Car Show on Sunday during the Eagles’ game led to checking the game out in the three bars located within a half-mile of each other along Huntingdon Pike—the Austrian Village, the Rockledge Inn and Breen’s—and none of the managers there say they get the Big 10 network.

travels

“Do you guys get the Penn State-Temple game on Saturday?”

“Depends on what network.”

“The Big 10 Network.”

“Ahh, no. It’s like $600 extra, not $6 or $60,” the bar manager at Austrian Village said.

That was the response also at The Rockledge Inn.

A guy in a green Eagles’ shirt  at Breen’s checked one of the side televisions and the Big 10 network came back as “you are not subscribed to this channel.”

So before heading off to a bar on Saturday, pick up a phone and make sure that place has the Big 10 Network. Temple’s official Philadelphia watch party is at the Fox and Hound (15th Street, Center City), but there are also huge watch parties on campus, at The Draught Horse and Master’s. The one at the Draught Horse is hosted by former Temple quarterback Mike Frost.

I would not recommend The Fox and Hound, simply because the large-screen TVs located at the bar are not high definition (the smaller ones at the tables are). Technically speaking, The Fox and Hound TVs are out of the 1980s. Not good if you are used to watching football on HDTV.  (I watched the first half of Temple-Houston last year there and high-tailed it out of there by halftime.) Unofficially, there are parties with Temple groups scheduled for the Green Parrot in Newtown, Bucks County, and Tom and Jerry’s in Delaware County, all free to enter (just need to purchase drinks). There is a paid party at Chickie and Pete’s in South Philadelphia hosted by District Attorney Seth Williams, with at least a $100 donation required to Williams’ campaign fund. No thanks. If you know any other informal gatherings of Temple fans at a watering hole, please list in the comments below.

The official Penn State watch parties in Philadelphia are scheduled for the Field House (11th and Filbert) and Manayunk Mad River Bar and Grille, 4100 Main Street.  So if you want to see long faces at the end of the game, those are the two places to go.

Out-of-town Temple-Penn State watch parties are scheduled for New York, Dallas (Sherlock’s Baker Street Pub, Addison, Tx), Atlanta (the Hudson Grille) and Washington (D.C.).

As far as Rockledge, I cannot believe that is the only town in the Philadelphia area without the Big 10 Network. Maybe the Big 10 needs to add Temple to ensure complete saturation in the nation’s fourth-largest market.

Tomorrow: The Rivalry Arrives

Saturday: Game Analysis

09.14.16
by

5 Keys For Beating Penn State

sportingnewsowls

Saturday would be a good time for the Owls to start playing like the  AAC champion The Sporting News predicted this summer.

After a shocking loss to Army that was more the result of a bad coaching scheme than physicality, Temple coach Matt Rhule conducted a ping-pong tournament at the Edberg-Olson Football Complex. The ping-pong diplomacy was just another bonding session for the Owls and, judging from the outcome of the Stony Brook game, the team that plays ping-pong together, wins together. So maybe playing table tennis this week is not a bad idea.

stare

“I want you to roll out and find receivers running free.”

Here are five other things they need to do:

  1. Making McSOREly

When Temple defensive coordinator Phil Snow last visited Happy Valley, he came up with a defensive scheme almost as bad as the Army one against then Lions’ quarterback Christian Hackenberg and that was to rush three and drop back eight. Snow forgot one thing. Hackenberg did not then and does not now like to get hit and, by giving Hackenberg extra time in the pocket, he was able to pick out receivers at will. Snow did not make the same mistake a second time last year and, except for one three-man rush (that resulted in a Nate D. Smith sack), he kept the pressure on all day and the Owls had an NCAA-high 10 sacks. They don’t need 10, but if they get five against rookie quarterback Trace McSorley, they will win. Game film shows he almost always fakes on the read-option before passing, so having two blitzers, one assigned for McSorley, the other going to the running back, would mess up the timing.

finch

Sharif … may be running with the 2s, but always makes big plays.

  1. Stopping Barkley

Last year, Penn State fans said the reason Temple won was because James Franklin gave Saquon Barkley only one carry. What they forget is that it was for minus-1 yard. The Owls are going to have to close up the A gaps and nose guard Averee Robinson is going to have to handle the Penn State center, which he is more than capable of doing. If the Owls have the same kind of success against Barkley that they did a year ago, he will have minus-25 yards. All they have to do to win, though, is the same job they did against Notre Dame standout C.J. Prosise, holding him to 25 yards on 14 carries.  Six of Prosise’s runs went for zero yards against many of the same players Barkley will face on Saturday. Is Barkley good? Yes. Is he better than Prosise? Probably not.

trick1

Expect the Owls to pull out all the stops.

  1. Moving Jahad Around

Jahad Thomas might start on Saturday at running back after missing the first two games with a thumb injury. Moving Thomas around like a shell in a shell game is key to utilizing him. He should get a few carries, but splitting him out into the slot when, say, Jager Gardner is in the game and hitting him with a deep ball would give the Owls two breakaway threats in the game at once, not one. Also, Thomas is a terrific runner in space so getting him the ball on screens, traditional or bubble, creates that space for him. Jahad got hurt again in practice Tuesday; if he can’t go, I would put Jager Gardner in as the lead back. Always felt Jager had the higher upside over Ryquell Armstead, who is more steady but less spectacular. Use Marshall Ellick as the edge playmaker.

  1. Dynamo Nicky

On a 17-yard run against Stony Brook where he knocked over four defenders, Nick Sharga reminded the old time Temple fans of former Owl and Cleveland Brown running back Henry Hynoski who was known as Dynamo Hyno at Temple. He reminded current Owl fans of why he wears a single digit as one of the nine toughest guys on the team. Call Sharga Dynamo Nicky until the press comes up with a better name. Pitt fullback George Aston hurt the Nittany Lions with a couple of touchdown runs up the middle against the soft underbelly of that defense. Sharga is also capable of exploiting that fatty tissue and he’s better than Aston.

choas

Owls will have to fly to the ball again.

  1. Rolling The Pocket

Phillip Walker is better when he’s on the run because that’s where he creates major headaches for defenses. When offensive coordinator Glenn Thomas has rolled the pocket for Walker, opposing linebackers and safeties come up to stop the threat of a run and Walker deftly tosses the ball over their heads as Temple receivers run free through the secondary. If the linebackers stay back, Walker can use his athleticism and speed to gain big yards on the run. By keeping him in the pocket in the first game, Glenn Thomas was doing Army a favor. When he’s in the pocket, he can’t see downfield and his passes are often deflected by linemen or, worse, he’s sacked. It’s time to unleash Walker by moving the pocket.

Tomorrow: Watch Parties

Friday: The Rivalry Arrives

09.12.16
by

Penn State Week: Debunking The Myths

A good recap of Temple’s single-digit tough guy tradition.

Since Al Gore invented the internet (relax, just kidding), one of the quickest ways to get a pulse of a fan base is to visit one of these ubiquitous college football message boards.

Penn State has one of the best in its Blue White Illustrated McAndrew Board, a Wild Wild West of insults, flames and trolls but, mostly, a place to hold the hand of the Nittany Lions’ fans and look at a stopwatch to gauge their heartbeat.

If you do not take them seriously, a few minutes reading what these fans are thinking can be wildly entertaining.

marshall

Matt Rhule pointing the way to PSU.

Most of them think Penn State will steamroll Temple and that faulty logic is based on a number of unrelated thoughts floating around in their heads they accept as doctrine. One, in their collective minds, Temple is nowhere near as good as last year. Two, if Army can rush for 329 yards against Temple, so can Penn State.

Before debunking those notions, here is a pretty good sampling of the way the fans are viewing Temple’s visit to Beaver Stadium (noon, Big Ten Network) on Saturday:

AWS1022  (PSU fan)

   “ We aren’t losing to Temple and I’m not sure how anyone who watched the game today would think so. Temple is worse than last year by a lot and we’re better than we were last year. If you think Temple would beat Pitt you’re crazy and I doubt we have 5 turnovers again next week. …”

Greenpeach (Pitt fan):

“You beat Temple by at least two touchdowns. Honestly, after a horrible start, I thought your team looked poised and played very well.”

You could find about 1,000 posts over there expressing similar sentiments using different words. There are a couple of things wrong with that line of thinking.

Temple is only “worse” to people who do not know any better. The people who do, the Temple coaches and the Temple fans, feel this is a better team than the one the school fielded last year. The results of the Army game do not change that. That game is an outlier because the Temple coaches do not know how to scheme against the triple option and they never really did. Temple gave up the A gaps and fullback dives all night. (Memo to Phil Snow: 44 stack, nose guard, two tackles in the A gaps and no triple option gouges you ever again.) Unless Penn State comes out and runs the triple option, gives to a nonexistent fullback, the Owls match up very well against the Nittany Lions.


Pitt had eight plays
of 20 or more yards
against Penn State.
The week before,
the Panthers had
ZERO plays of 20
or more yards, and
that was against
Villanova.
Yes, Villanova
which is quite possibly
worse than Stony Brook.

The result of the Penn State game probably will be an affirmation of it. Here are a couple more facts to ponder: Kent State gave the Nits a game for the better part of three quarters on the road. Kent State lost to North Carolina A&T last week. Yes, A&T. At home. Pitt had eight plays of 20 or more yards against Penn State. The week before, the Panthers had ZERO plays of 20 or more yards, and that was against Villanova. Yes, Villanova  which is quite possibly worse than Stony Brook.

First off, to the casual outsider, the losses of linebacker Tyler Matakevich, tackle Matt Ioannidis, corner Tavon Young and wide receiver Robby Anderson are insurmountable. The Temple fan, the guy who pours over depth charts 365 days a year, knows better. Matakevich is not replaced by one player, but by three linebackers who have 41 starts between them. Two of them are repeat single-digit players, meaning they were among the nine toughest guys on the team last year as well. Because of the play of corners Nate Hairston and Artrel Foster, who both saw plenty of time last year, Tavon Young’s loss is replaceable. Moving the other corner, Sean Chandler, to the middle of the field has accentuated his ball skills and made the secondary better. Ioannidis is replaced by the deepest and fastest defensive line Temple has ever fielded. So much so that the defensive end who made the play of the game in a 27-10 win over Penn State a year ago, Sharif Finch, is now second team through no fault of his own but because the Owls have beasts on both ends, Haason Reddick and Praise Martin-Oguike, the latter who had an interception in the Notre Dame game.

To the know-it-alls on the opposing fan message boards, these players do not exist. On game day, they will wonder where they came from and wish they had paid closer attention to what Temple really has coming back.

In five days, they will learn the hard way.

Wednesday: 5 Keys For Beating Penn State

Friday: The Rivalry Arrives

Saturday: Game Analysis

09.10.16
by

The Listerine Bowl

Sometimes it’s hard to taste the fruit when the mouth has a sour taste in it, so consider today’s 38-0 win over Stony Brook The Listerine Bowl.

Stony Brook is not that bad, and Temple is probably not as bad as it showed against Army. Still, the loss a week ago left a bad taste in the mouths of Temple fans and, on my way out, I heard a surprising number of fans say they will never come back again. For those who did come back, that sour taste now has been rinsed for awhile.

subdivision

For the others, the 12,000 or so who did not return this week but were there last week, they cannot be blamed.

That’s the price of not being prepared for a triple-option team when you had nine months to prepare for one. That game is over now and there is no way to get either it back or a good portion of the 34,005 fans who attended the Army game. Earlier this week, in a post I titled “Unintended Consequences” I wrote the Owls would be lucky to draw 22,000 for Stony Brook. Make it 22,256, which was the official attendance. In a 70K stadium, 22,256 looks small and it was.

Maybe if the Owls beat Penn State and take a very good record into USF, we will see 34,005 again but I doubt it—at least this year. As the editor of Pravda likes to say, it is what it is.

Saturday, we learned a lot of things, but mostly we got the bad taste out of our mouths. Here are a few of the things:

  • Logan Marchi, not Frank Nutile, is the backup quarterback. Marchi was the first quarterback in after Phillip Walker left the game.
  • Redshirts were burned all over the place, including Benny Walls, who got an interception, Karamo Dioubate, who put good pressure on the quarterback, and Isaiah Wright, who looks like he possesses the “it” factor as an offensive threat. That’s a good thing, not a bad thing. If your recruiting is good enough to get players who can play right away, that’s the idea.
  • Walker says Jahad Thomas will be back for the Penn State game. That is the best news of all because, as good as Ryquell Armstead is, he is not capable of stopping in the middle of the field at full throttle and doing a 360-degree spin to get away from defenders. Thomas is, and he did that in two games last year (UCF and UConn). Thomas is a game-breaking talent and he will be needed against Penn State.
  • Stony Brook beat a North Dakota team that won at FBS Wyoming last year. North Dakota gave Bowling Green all it could handle yesterday and Bowling Green is usually pretty good. Beating a team like Stony Brook, 38-0, should be a confidence-builder but, for the Owls to re-establish their brand, they must win at Penn State next week.

It won’t be easy, but it is doable—unless James Franklin comes out in a triple option.

Monday: Penn State Week

09.09.16
by

Survive And Advance

NCAA Football: Wake Forest at Boston College

A year ago,  Jordan Gowins (34) was running the ball for Steve Addazio at BC. Saturday, he will be running against TU. Gregory J. Fisher-USA TODAY Sports

One of my good friends is a great FCS official, warned me in the early part of the summer: “Mike, watch out for Stony Brook. Chuck Priore has a pretty good head on his shoulders.”

Consider myself warned.

In many respects, Priore’s career mirrors that of Matt Rhule in that both have one win over Army (SB’s was 23-3, 2012) and both have had one 10-win season. The difference, other than the obvious FBS and FCS designations, is that Priore literally brought the Seawolves up from the very bottom of college football. Starting as the team’s head coach in 2006, Priore had only 20 scholarships to offer and now has 63—that is quite a bit fewer than what Temple has, which offers 25 every season.

The thought process among many Temple fans is that the Owls are going to smoke Stony Brook. That might happen, it might not. My thought process is a little different. Remember, Stony Brook opened with a 16-9 win over a North Dakota team that beat FBS member Wyoming on the road last season.

For Temple, it’s got to be survive and advance because a loss means this season is done. There is no reasonable person who believes that Temple can open with losses to Army and Stony Brook and win the AAC. As Spock would say, it’s just not logical.


Priore has a good
offensive mind and
probably will try the
counters, deep throws
to stretch the field,
reverses and traps
the Owls eschewed
against Army in one
of the most boring
offensive game plans
I have ever seen in my
40 years as a Temple fan

I was against scheduling this game because, if you win it, it’s “meh.” If you lose it, you will hear Temple sucks for the entire next week and have no acceptable comeback. For me, Temple should always avoid the “too much to lose” games. That’s the athletic director’s job, though. The coach’s job is to win it and that is that is why Matt Rhule is making $1.5 million. He’s got to get the job done.

Stony Brook not only beat No. 19 North Dakota last week, it beat No. 13 New Hampshire last season. It is used to beating good football teams. The Seawolves have nine FBS transfers, so at least nine players have played significant time against opponents on a par with Temple. They have an All-American offensive tackle in Timon Parris (6-5, 310), who lines up on the left side. The two guards are P5 transfers, Mason Zimmerman (Maryland) and Jonathan Haynes (West Virginia). Running back Jordan Gowins (Boston College) is a talent.

Priore has a Philadelphia connection, having served as the offensive line coach and offensive coordinator at the University of Pennsylvania from 1992 to 1999. During Priore’s time at Penn, the Quakers compiled an impressive record of 52-27, including three Ivy League titles and a 24-game winning streak. In 1998, the Penn offense set a school record for points in a season with 297.

He is the older brother of the current Penn coach, Ray Priore.

Despite scoring only a special team’s touchdown last week, Priore has a good offensive mind and probably will try the counters, deep throws to stretch the field, reverses and traps the Owls eschewed against Army in one of the most boring offensive game plans I have ever seen in my 40 years as a Temple fan.

Hopefully, the snooze fest ends for the Owl fans this week in a 49-10 type win, but I will sign for a 16-9 Temple win right now because the alternative is too horrid to even think about and the coach on the other side of the field has a head on his shoulders he uses for more than a hat rack.

pickings

Saturday (posted by 10:30 p.m.): Game Analysis

Monday: Penn State Week

Wednesday: Rolling Pocket

Friday: Penn State Preview

09.07.16
by

Unintended Consequences

Thanks to TU’s refusal to play an 8-man front, we may have already reached our high-water mark for number of Temple fans this season.

Two steps forward, one step back.

That has been the pattern for Temple football, even in the era of resurgence that came with the hiring of Al Golden late in 2005.

Have a chance to get bowl-eligible in 2008, lose on a Hail Mary pass at Buffalo instead. Go to Ohio for a chance to win a title in 2009, lose that game instead. Bring 23K Temple fans to a frozen tundra in D.C., have them go home losers instead. Win a bowl game in 2011, have a disappointing season in 2012.

Two steps forward, one step back.

Now, it has happened again with the embarrassing and unacceptable loss to Army in the season opener. The Era of Good Feeling (two steps forward) was sustained for most of 2015 because of a 7-0 start and because of the big win over Penn State.

laborious

Former Temple player Fizzy brings up a lot of good points in this email.

Even last year, though, a dumb decision by the administration to turn down a chance to play Auburn or Virginia Tech resulted in a return to the MAC, where the Owls proved once again that they cannot beat a winning MAC team. That was a game the Owls could have and should have avoided at all costs, because they had nothing to gain and plenty to lose and they lost plenty. It was embarrassing and a step back in a two-step forward season.

If the Owls had beaten Army before a crowd of 34,005, they would have set themselves up for a nice run of home crowds in the first-ever season where they played seven home games. They would have not drawn the 34,005 for Stony Brook that they did for Army, but they might have gotten the 30,181 they got for a winless UCF team in the mid-point of last season. Hard numbers point to the major reason for disappointing attendance is a disappointing early loss. That pattern is likely to repeat itself because hard numbers do not lie.

Now, they will be lucky to get 22,000 fans—if that—for Stony Brook on Saturday. The fans cannot be blamed. The players did not deserve to be thrown under the bus (they were). It was just two God-awful coaching game plans, one on offense and one on defense, which deserve the brunt of the blame. Nine months to get ready for a one-dimensional team and the Owls approached the game like they were playing any other foe. Still have not heard a word from CEO Matt Rhule on how poorly prepared this team was or a word criticizing either of his coordinators game plan that showed little imagination on offense and no semblance of a clue as to how to stop even the most basic option on defense.

Do not hold your breath.

Accepting responsibility at the top is not coming, but the unintended consequence of a mostly empty stadium for the balance of the season is bound to be on display Saturday. It will be impossible to get the stadium as lively as it was on opening night unless the Owls take a long winning streak into the USF game.

That is the unintended consequence of two steps forward, one step back, which seems to be par for the course for Temple football the past few years. There are words to describe the feeling for the fans and they must include agonizing, frustrating and infuriating.

The fans deserve better.

Friday: A Look At Stony Brook

09.05.16
by

Monday: What’s News?

A pretty good recap of how James Madison exploited SB for 38 points.

They say bad news comes in threes, and so it was on Friday for the Temple University football team.

The first bit of bad news was in the form of a story on CSN.com that the stadium is a non-starter, at least from City Council’s point of view. The second showed up on Philly.com, quoting an AP source saying that Temple is now out of Big 12 consideration. A few hours later, the worst news came in the form of an ill-prepared and poorly-coached Owls’ team losing to team that posted a 2-10 record the year before. A 10-win team with plenty of starters back lost to a two-win team with only 14 players back from its two-deep depth chart. There is no way to sugarcoat or minimize how bad that looks, feels or is.


“We had 21 points
on the board before
we even started.
We probably would
never have discovered
that, had we not
graded all the film.”
_ Wayne Hardin
on how film study
won the 1979 GSB

This is not where we should be, but this is where we are. Maybe they are not related developments, but certainly all coming on Sept. 2, 2016, a day that will live in Temple football infamy.

Temple fell into recent bad Temple habits of “worrying about what we do, not what the other guys do” and “just concentrating on what we do best and the process will take care of itself.”

Will it?

No.

The entire Owl coaching staff needs to go into a room and listen to guys like Wayne Hardin and Bill Belichick tell them war stories of how they picked up this tendency and that tendency of an opponent and how they delighted about exploiting said tendencies.

Then, for their homework assignment, take three game films from last year’s Stony Brook schedule—William and Mary, Maine and James Madison—and determine just what the William and Mary and Maine defenses did well and what the James Madison offense did well, have every assistant and head coach contribute and apply those same principles to Saturday’s game plan. William and Mary shut out the Sea Wolves, 21-0, on Sept. 15, and Maine held them to 10 points a month later. In between, James Madison scored 38 points in a 38-20 win.


Then, for their
homework assignment,
take three game films
from last year’s
Stony Brook
schedule—William& Mary,
Maine and
James Madison—and
determine just what
the William&Mary
and Maine defenses
did well and what
the James Madison
offense did well

It’s probably no coincidence that Belichick followed Hardin around as a 7-year-old son of a Navy assistant coach. The current Temple coaches need to listen to this story about the Garden State Bowl and how the Owls had it won before the California coaches knew what hit them.

“Cal wanted to exchange films of every game,” Hardin said in a 2009 Inquirer story. “Usually you just take the first one, one in the middle and the last one. So I said, ‘Find out which coaches on their staff want them?’ Turned out, it was the defensive coaches. OK. We spent night after night after night, digging and digging and digging. We came up with one or two things we had to do.

“We found out that if we pulled our guards up the middle, we’d end up with one of them going down the field untouched into the secondary. So did the back. Get the hell out of the way. There was no one to block. We had 21 points on the board before we even started. We probably would never have discovered that, had we not graded all the film. …

“On offense, their quarterback [Rich Campbell] was taught, which we knew, to read when he didn’t see anything [to] throw blindly into the flat to the fullback. I mean, game after game. The fullback was catching the ball and making big yards. So we developed a two-man [pass] rush, which we wouldn’t have done. We’d have one guy come up to meet the fullback, whichever way he went, 5 yards deep in the backfield. And eight guys would drop into coverage. So there’s nothing to read, except a lot of jerseys.

“Those are the type of things that can happen. That’s how upsets are made. People study.”

Does anyone really think the Temple brain trust did enough study of Army? Were the A gaps left uncovered? (Err, yes. That’s where the fullback got his yards.) Did the Owls even try to make Army throw the ball to beat them by loading the box with eight?  Nothing on the field indicated it. (Duke beat Army, 44-3, last year by loading the box with eight and daring the Cadets to throw.) The Temple linebackers were 4 or 5 yards off the ball. You play Penn State that way, not Army.  In fact, nothing on the field the past three years indicates Temple does enough film study of any opponent.

Stony Brook might be a good one to start with.

Mix in a little Tribe defensive scheme with a dose of successful Madison plays and away we go. It’s all right if part of the process involves doing what you do well, but the ingredients for winning include a little of this and a little of that and if that’s not part of your process, you’ve got to get a new process. There’s a lot of chess and checkmating in football to be done these days, just like those days.

Otherwise, the bad news of last week could get a whole lot worse.

There would be no dishonor in Phil Snow stealing part or all of this game plan.

Wednesday: Unintended Consequences

 

09.03.16
by

Cherry and Vanilla

Phil Snow had 9 months to prepare for the triple option and this is what he came up with?

In one of those offseason brain-storming sessions between fans and coaches, new Temple offensive coordinator Glenn Thomas reportedly told the group that he felt the Owls’ offense was “too stubborn” last season.

If last year was too stubborn, then just what was that 34,004 Temple fans were forced to watch in a 28-13 loss to Army on Friday night?

falcons

Glenn Thomas: Too stubborn

Last night might as well been the return of the Single Wing, with the Owls trying to force feed two things they do not do particularly well—run the ball straight ahead and throw the ball in the pocket.

Fight, fight, fight for the Cherry and the, err, Vanilla.

When you have a quarterback like P.J. Walker, you move him around the pocket and create the threat of run/pass. When you drop him back, you invite him to get killed and that’s just what happened.

Thomas gets an F for his first night as the new coordinator, but the real responsibility rests with the CEO of the operation, Matt Rhule. What worked for the Owls was the little rollout passes Walker was able to complete and the Owls should have counterpunched by going over the top for the long ball. Army’s defensive backs could not hang with the Owls’ wide receivers but those mismatches were never capitalized upon. Rhule is not blind. He has to take charge when he sees mismatches.

Why?

Too stubborn was as  good a reason as any, maybe too nice a guy the other.

Phil Snow also gets an F, but we outlined here that Snow has a checkered history against the triple option—giving up no less than 31 points in each of his last four of his last five tries against it. (The one exception was a 34-13 win in 2013.) Last night, he improved upon that by three but the Owls allowed 324 rushing yards. Again, the buck stops with Rhule because Wayne Hardin never lost to a triple option team in his 13 years at Temple a testimony to studying film and countering it well—with blitzes from the blind side blowing up pitchouts before they got downhill.

At times over the last three years, it looks as though Temple never even looks at film of opponents. Rhule likes to preach the process but it’s painfully apparent film study of opponents is not a valued part of it. Fordham scored 37 on Army last year and Duke scored 44 and allowed just three points. Might want to copy what Duke did on defense and Fordham did on offense.

A team that recruits NFL players, like Temple and Duke does, should never lose to a team that requires a five-year military commitment. Duke and David Cutcliffe got the job done. Temple and Matt Rhule and his crew did not.They had nine months to work on a game plan for this one-dimensional foe and impressed no one with it.

Monday: What’s New?